Flying

Lavatories on corporate and privately owned airplanes run the gamut from none at all to luxuriously appointed throne rooms fit for royalty. If you take nothing else away from this little essay, please remember: When flying on an unfamiliar airplane, you need to ask ahead of time what facilities, if any, will be available. Then plan your meal and drink schedule accordingly.

The Dish: Nigiri Maki Chef Galine at Chefs de France on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten begins making this tantalizing Japanese platter by rolling sushi rice between his palms. Then he drapes the sushi with a thin slice of squid, octopus or eel and binds it together with a strip of nori, or edible seaweed.

When Bombardier Aerospace launched its newest from-the-ground-up midsize Learjet-now named the Learjet 85-the company's chief designers made two key decisions. The first, not announced until well after the launch, was that the structure-including wings, fuselage and tail-would be made of composite materials instead of the traditional aluminum used for most business jets.

The Dish: Lobster Popcorn with Lemon Butter Lobster and popcorn both improve with butter, and when you combine all three ingredients, you're on the road to culinary heaven. This labor-intensive dish starts with boiled lobster, which is shocked in an ice bath after cooking. Then the tail is sliced into bite-size medallions.

Editor's note: Cessna suspended development of the aircraft reviewed below in April 2009 and then formally cancelled the program in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 10, 2009.

More than 20 years after it was conceived, the MD 902 Explorer is coming into its own as a fast and comfortable light twin-engine turbine helicopter that performs exceptionally well in hot temperatures and high altitudes.

Even when economic times were good, regional airliners reconfigured for executive/VIP use were a bargain, offering a large-cabin equivalent of a Bombardier Global XRS or a Gulfstream G550 at a fifth of the cost.

With the economy worsening and the media focusing on the cost of private jet operation, many executives are looking for ways to reduce their travel expenses. If you're not quite ready to trade private jet efficiency for the hassles of commercial aviation, sharing charter flights could be the answer.

As the economy has suffered historic setbacks, an old four-letter word has come to the fore in our business vernacular: risk. Just as you seek to better understand the risk of your portfolio investments, you should consider the risk that goes with your fractional jet ownership.

"It has never made sense to me that people who wouldn't consider driving in a car without airbags will get in an aircraft that doesn't have them," said Bill Hagan, president of Phoenix-based AmSafe Aviation. According to Hagan, airbags on airplanes can significantly increase passenger safety in accidents that occur during taxiing, takeoff and landing.